The United States is fortunate to have the world’s longest-surviving written constitution, and this year’s Law Day theme, “Toward a More Perfect Union: The Constitution in Times of Change,” reminds us that the longevity of our governing charter is attributable in great part to its flexibility in accommodating the nation’s changing needs and circumstances. In the words of Edmund Randolph, Virginia’s delegate to the Constitutional Constitution, the goal in drafting the federal constitution was to “insert essential principles only, lest the operations of government should be clogged by rendering those provisions permanent and unalterable which ought to be accommodated to times and events.” Draft Sketch of Constitution by Edmund Randolph (July 26, 1787).

Article III of the United States Constitution, laying out the framework of the federal courts, is a model of simplicity, employing a mere 369 words to establish a Supreme Court while delegating to Congress the task of ordaining and establishing the lower federal courts and their respective jurisdictions.

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